


Leader Ship: Mom and Dad.

by signifying_nothing



Category: Boyfriend (Band), K-pop, UNIQ (Band)
Genre: Gen, eonnie's famous crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leader Ship: Zhou Yixuan, Kim Donghyun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leader Ship: Mom and Dad.

Korean promotions made Yixuan weary. It was difficult to remember all of the Korean, even though he'd been speaking it for four years, it was hard to remember that the Korean sense of humor was very different than what he was used to. It was difficult to watch over the group of children he'd been mothering since they were trainees.

They'd gotten better, over time. Wenhan helped, as best he could, Sungjoo did his best to be responsible. Yi Bo and Seungyoun, however. Those two.

Yixuan rubbed the back of his neck and dropped his head onto the coffee table, bent nearly in half over the length of his thighs. The two of them were staying late and so he had to stay late to walk them home. He didn't trust the two of them to get there themselves, they'd probably end up in India or something and that was the last thing he needed.

“Yixuan?”

“Eh?”

He looked up to see Donghyun standing in the doorway. When they'd first been told that Starship would be managing them, when they were in Korea, Yixuan had been wary. Weren't they all very young, the people from that company? But Donghyun was a year older and had a manner about him that Yixuan found comfortable. He was... Fatherly.

“Aah, what's up.”

“Why are you still here?” Donghyun's Mandarin left something to be desired but Yixuan admired him for trying, anyway. It was very sweet of him.

“The kids,” he waved his hands in a vague sort of way. “Practice.”

“Aah,” Donghyun nodded and moved into the room to sit with him. The two of them got on well, partly because Donghyun was desperate to have someone to talk to who was closer to him in age, and partly because Yixuan had laid the ground rule that all of that... Age-relationship related crap had to go.

Donghyun didn't seem to care about it, which was good.

He sat down on the couch and slowly pulled Yixuan up to be sitting, instead of bending himself over in a way that would be painful, after a while. “Are they coming here when they're done?”

“Yeah,” Yixuan replied, closing his eyes, reeling from the headrush. “Yeah, they know to come here. I have their stuff.”

“Such a good mother,” Donghyun teased. Yixuan scowled over at him, squinting through his white bangs.

“Like you're one to talk,” he replied. Donghyun laughed and nodded in a self-deprecating kind of way. Yixuan took the moment to look at him. Donghyun was kind of weird looking. He had a strange voice, high in the back of his throat. He had thin fingers and the sort of tension in his shoulders that only came from being terrified of letting the people around you down.

“But I guess you're a good father. The kids love you, right?”

“I hope so,” Donghyun said, though his voice wavered.

“What's wrong?”

Donghyun looked at the floor. “We have to outsell the new kids with our next mini,” he said, his throat tight. “Otherwise... Well. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news.”

Yixuan scowled. He knew the kind of bad news Donghyun was speaking of. The kind of bad news that resulted in a group being disbanded, that resulted in friendships being ruined with blame. “The noisy ones? But you don't make the same kind of music at all, that's not fair.”  
“Life's not fair, Yixuanah.” Donghyun sighed and Yixuan sat up a little straighter, reaching to drape his arm over Donghyun's broad shoulders. “Sorry. I didn't come in here to complain.”

“Mm? Who's complaining?” Yixuan asked, glancing around the room before pulling the older man in to let him get close against his shoulder. “Come on. Take a nap with me. We can walk the kids home when they're done.”

“I really shouldn't--”

“I really wasn't asking,” Yixuan said, cocking one eyebrow down at the man whose eyes were already starting to close, his head a weight settling slowly. “Come on. Relax. It's gonna be okay, huh?”

“I hope so,” Donghyun's voice was high and choked. Yixuan cooed in Mandarin and shifted to be able to hold his hand, hoping to comfort his distress. Yixuan had always wanted to be a performer, but this was the part of the industry he hated. The part that made good people, talented people, crumble apart over something stupid like sales or fan cafe counts, or...

Donghyun fell asleep against Yixuan's shoulder, and Yixuan sang old Beijing Opera under his breath to make sure he stayed that way, until someone came into the ugly fluorescents of the room. Yixuan recognized him, but didn't know his name. He halted in the doorway and Yixuan fought the urge to squint. Glare. What was there to fucking stare at?

“Sorry, hyung,” the young man said, standing there fiddling with his hands. “Is... Is hyung awake?”

“No,” he replied, his voice soft. He felt Donghyun shift and pressed his cheek back into his soft hair. “No, he's not.”

“...Okay,” the young man nodded, ran his hands through his hair and put his snapback on. “Could you tell him I came to see him?”

“Yeah. Go home, go to bed.” Yixuan frowned and the boy in the doorway nodded.

“Workin' on it,” he said, before disappearing out into the hallway. Yixuan scowled after him, turning his head and torso to make sure Donghyun was relaxed against him before slouching, tipping his head and closing his eyes. Maybe he'd just nap for a few minutes. The kids should be done soon.

A few minutes turned into a few hours, and Yixuan was rudely awakened by Wenhan shaking his shoulder and thus shaking Donghyun, who groaned in protest. “Stop it,” Yixuan snapped. “We're awake, god, fuck off.”

“Sorry,” Wenhan said, not sounding very sorry at all. “Sorry. Practice in an hour, I thought you might wanna, so me and Hyunwoo went to get you something to eat.”

Hyunwoo.

The boy who'd been there last night, right.

Yixuan squinted one eye up at Wenhan before sighing and nodding. “Lemme eat,” he said, carefully sitting up. “I'll be in when I'm done.”

“Okay.” Wenhan offered him a smile, far too bright for that early in the morning, and Yixuan turned his head to murmur into Donghyun's hair.

“Hey, you hungry?”

“Mmm.”

“They brought us food, come on. Eat something.”

Donghyun complained, shaking his head and frowning, at least until Yixuan sat up all the way and brought Donghyun with him, whether he wanted to go or not. “Come on, Dad,” Yixuan laughed, pushing back Donghyun's hair to make it look a little more respectable and not like he'd fallen asleep on someone on a couch in a break room at their company's offices. “Time to rise and shine. And eat.”

“Don't want to, Mom,” Donghyun grumbled, though he didn't refuse the chopsticks pressed into his hands, the little container of white rice.

“Too bad,” Yixuan said, leaning to kiss Donghyun's forehead with a companionable warmth. “We've got kids to take care of.”

Donghyun groaned and threw himself back into the couch, though he didn't spill his rice. “Nooo.”

“Yeees,” Yixuan mocked. “Come on, we can go downstairs together when we're done.”

Donghyun nodded, and Yixuan ate, their arms still linked at the elbow. When the meal was finished, Yixuan stood up, dragged Donghyun with him.

“Hey,” he said, pausing.

“Hm?” Donghyun looked over at him and he looked so tired, so thoroughly wrung. Yixuan tugged him in close for a tight hug, arms around his waist.

“It's gonna be okay, huh?”

Donghyun's entire body stiffened and then relaxed, his eyes squeezing closed. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I hope so.” Yixuan didn't let go until Donghyun's chest stopped that slight, terrible jerk that happened when someone wanted to cry but refused to. 

Their walk downstairs was punctuated with their hands held together.

“Later, Dad.”

“See you, Mom.”

Wenhan rolled his eyes as Yixuan stepped into their practice room. “God, get a room, you two.”

“If it would save us from the rest of you, believe me, we would.”

Yixuan heard Donghyun choke on a laugh as he closed the door to the other groups practice room and he felt a sense of accomplishment. Yeah, that's what needed to happen. Donghyun needed to laugh.

Yixuan felt better already.

 


End file.
